Starting from Zero

November 2, 2016makitrans

“Exactly!” The President teased: “Do you think you can even contact people at the Darkness Palace?”

“Ai! When has this little warrior had the ability to take the initiative!?” I fished out the ring I‘ve been trying appraise. “The system told me my Luck is high, but I’ve appraised this over a hundred and eighty times and there’s still no result.”

“Wait, wait!” The president eye gleamed at the sight of the ring I held in my hands. “How did you obtain this?”

“This?” I held the ring out infront of me. “This is a system reward, I still don’t know what use it has, I’ve been trying for ages but I still can’t appraise it! Sigh! Aren’t you an appraiser yourself? Would you help me out?”

The President carefully received the ring then said, “The appraisal Fee is ten thousand gold coins.”

“What?” I think there’s something wrong with my ears!

“Ten thousand gold coins, and I’ll help you appraise it.  You may think it’s expensive, but I’ll guarantee with this ring your life will be smooth sailing, and all your wishes will come true!”

TL Note: It’s literal translation of a Chinese idiom

“It’s that extraordinary?” I really wanted to, but in reality… I rummaged through my bag but it only amounted to 32 gold coins. “I don’t have enough money!”

Clark immediately said: “Just help him appraise it! I’ll help him with the money!”

Feeling grateful I said: “Sorry for inconveniencing you! Then I’ll owe you, in the future when I begin to earn money I’ll definitely pay you back!”

The President being extraordinarily careful lifted up a painting on the back wall, unexpectedly there was a safe behind it. The old man took out three keys from different areas of his body , and opened the deposit box. Within he took out a fine handmade metal case. “This is my precious, only if there’s something to be appraised would I take it out!” He then slotted the ring into the box on top of the table, and opened the lid. Threads of gold light emitted out from the case, and onto the ring, upon contact with the light, the entire ring dazzlingly flashed and then turned black. The bat decoration on the ring momentarily disappeared, leaving behind a large ruby.

TL note: My precioussssss, bat décor was like the seal btw

After returning the box, the President returned the ring back to me. “This ring is a mission triggering item, it’ll seem that you’ll need to work hard (The President greeted Clark, Clark returned his greeting with the money) With what I am aware, I’ll tell you this, you’ll need to bring the ring to the Oscar’s mother earth shrine at the Everlasting neutral zone to trigger the mission. However I am not clear about the mission rewards, I don’t think this mysterious mission ought to give you trash! However seeing the high rank of the ring, I suggest you try attempting the mission when you’re past Level 500.

TL Note: Yes, the name Oscar is the direct translation of the phonetic p.r.o.nunciation of the English name Oscar (Ao-Si-Ka) in Chinese. It may be a weird name for a location like Auscar, but it will remain as Oscar until more is revealed about it.

I was constantly nodding my head, while I was looking at the properties of the ring, after a glance my entire body went frozen. Clark hurriedly asked: “So what properties does it have? I helped you big time, so don’t shatter my expectations of you.

I swallowed a mouthful of my saliva and said: “This ring is called the [Ring of Stars] every base attribute will become the biggest (That is, any base attribute you have will equally rise to how high your largest base attribute is )

Attributes are increase Magic Attack by 20%, Magic casting speed increase by 20%, can learn any darkness-related magic, 20% increase in magic power, increase maximum magic damage by 20%, 20% of damage received is converted to magic damage towards enemies, every attribute increase by 2, Luck increases by 7.

Brother! You indeed picked up a treasure, I’ve never known of any awesome G.o.dly tool like this! With those increases in attributes, you’ll become a superhero! Every base attribute you have increased to 13 right?

TL note: (Brother in Chinese is just what intimate men call each other)

I promptly wore it, and saw all of it become 13, now I’m a bit regretful that I originally didn’t add everything into one attribute! “Yep, it’s 13!”

“What?”The old man could not believe it. “How are your base stats so high? Even if you add all your stats into one, it won’t reach that high!”

I embarra.s.sedly said, “Truthfully speaking, I managed to win four spins as a new player! And I chose the demon race, therefore compared to others mine are higher!”

“What!?”The old man was even more shocked. “Indeed  a real person cannot be seen through his cover! What an inspiration! An inspiration! But…” The old man stopped. “It’s best not to tell other people this, if the more people know, the more likely they won’t be friendly with you.”

“Yeah! I know!” Within my mind it’s not decided that everyone will get good magic pets at the beginning, you need to find them on your own with your own opportunities!

Clarke suddenly asked “What level are you?”

“70? Why?”

“That is really low, you need to work harder! You have a Darkness Dragon to help you level faster!

“Don’t worry, I’ll work hard!”

Then again, the old man endlessly talked about my long journey to level,  this time I went to the medicine king’s shop to buy 4 pouches of Undead Pellets. I used up all the previous ones! Before coming out,  I sold off the armour I previously collected while levelling and bought 3 Return Scrolls to the Lost City. (Each city has their own speciality return scrolls that can allow return back to the city, all cities also have regular return scrolls which can only allow return to the nearest city)

(TL Note: 1 Pouch = 10 Pellets)

After coming out of the city gates, I was considering which direction to go, I cannot continue levelling at the Dark Canyon, the low level Zombies give low experience, while the high level Departed Warriors will just fight me with an entire army! Looking at the top of the map, there seems to be a place called the Bewitching Forest, it recommends level 50 to level 150 players to level there as it produces many monsters with low defence.

After selecting the location, I embarked on my journey towards there. Currently Lucky is ma.s.sive, after leaving the city he can be used as a mount, with his a.s.sistance it’ll only take a moment before we arrive at the Bewitching Forest.

It is really scary inside, stationed at the edge of the forest I can see a dense white fog floating between the trees, I have completely no idea what’s awaiting inside! According to the map, there shouldn’t be anything in the surroundings, so I strengthened my courage and walked in.

It is really slippery within the forest, the entire floor is covered in criss-crossing tree roots, there’s lot of moss attached on the surface of the tree roots that clung onto my hands and feet, making myself into a sorry state.

Of course! By using the Ring of Stars I can learn any darkness related magic! Hurriedly,

I examined it to learn the surrounding darkness-related magic for half a day, and except for learning death fog magic, it is able to reduce the amount of surrounding moist in the atmosphere making me not only more comfortable but realize that it is practically useless! The entire amount of darkness related magic I could learn exceeded 300 types, unexpectedly besides two types of healing magics, a couple supporting magics and over ten other types of other magics, the recent dark fog had a half defence, half attack based magic that I could learn within as well apart from all the other attacking magics! I’ll really faint to death at this rate, strangely despite the fog being so perverted, it seems that from the start it hasn’t attacked once!?

I grumbled on the side, then Lucky suddenly alerted me. I prepared for battle, because the first monster is finally appearing! ­­­­­

TL Note: This story isn’t like a diary or anything, it is literally a first person account of his thoughts and feelings as he deals with situations. Thus, it is told in the present tense, and past when commenting on certain events. There is also Chinese jargon within, that is difficult to translate due to the differences between the Chinese and English language due to cultural factors such as belittling oneself in third person (E.g. This humble servant does not dare!)

Sorry guys I’ve been busy lately =3= I’m currently having my IB examinations so it’s a very stressful time where I hardly have any time to translate. It’ll end around Nov 22nd so expect quite a few releases on that week! >_< sorry="">